Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy 15’s multiplayer expansion, known as Comrades, will finally get its previously announced standalone release today, December 12th, in the US, and tomorrow in the UK.

Comrades, which originally launched at the tail-end of last year, unfolds six months after the concluding events of the main game. Players take on the role of a Kinsglaive soldier (conjured into being via a flexible character creation tool), and, starting at their base in Lestallum, must collect meteor shards to restore power to the kingdom of Lucis.

Meteor shards (as well as money for upgrading weapons and the like) can be acquired through missions, all playable co-operatively with up to three friends. Missions are predominantly focussed around monster hunting, using a modified version of the core game’s combat system, and turning in meteor shards will unlock new missions and more areas of the map.

When Comrades originally launched, it was available as part of Final Fantasy 15’s season pass on PS4 and Xbox One, or on its own for £15.49. Those that played it seemed to quite enjoy its distinctive take on brisk co-operative questing, despite its fairly unintuitive demands when attempting to gather friends together in order to actually start a multiplayer session.

Although Comrades previously required a copy of Final Fantasy 15’s base game to run, its new, completely standalone version on Xbox One and PS4 won’t. Square previously announced that this separate version will add new creatures, such as the powerful Daemon Melusine, and that all new features will be available as a free update for those that already own Comrades.

Last month, Square Enix announced the departure of Final Fantasy 15 creator Hajime Tabata, resulting in the cancellation of the majority of DLC episodes planned for 2019.